High Strung: A Glass Bead Mystery (The Glass Bead Mystery Series) (2 page)

Tessa,
always the smart businesswoman, had decided she’d host some demonstrations on Friday before the weekend’s events at Aztec Beads. It was a great plan for getting people to come to her studio as well as to Rosie’s bead shop. A few years ago Tessa had been able to rent the perfect place in Seattle’s funkiest neighborhood, the Fremont district. Fremont was known for the enormous troll that lives under a bridge in the area. It’s not a real live troll, just a statue, but between that, the giant bronze sculpture of Lenin, and the wonderful eclectic shops, it was the perfect place for her glass studio.

Fremont Fire had a retail area in front where Tessa sold her own work, and the work of other local artists. The back half of her space was the glass studio. All types of people came to the studio to take classes, use the torches
Tessa had set up, or learn to make a plate by fusing sheets of glass together in a kiln. Tessa was there to help the students, and of course to sell them whatever supplies they needed.

Her studio was in an edgy neighborhood, but
Tessa herself was the most down-to-earth person I’d ever met. Her clean-scrubbed face and brown shoulder-length hair said “soccer mom,” not artist. The funny thing about artists is that they look like normal people. In fact, I find that the people who look the most “arty” are often people who have the money to spend on interesting clothing.

I parked
the Ladybug and walked toward Tessa’s shop, the smell of bagels wafting from the open door of The Bagelry beckoned. A few spoonfuls of half-cooked cake batter had not been a good start to the day. I stopped in and picked up a dozen bagels, cream cheese, and some coffee. Since I was juggling a sack of bagels and a tray of drinks, I pushed my way backward through the door of Tessa’s studio.

“
Good morning,” I yelled to Tessa and her daughters. “I brought food. Tessa, here’s your espresso, we’ve got bagels.” I put the bag on the counter by the front door.

“
Excellent!” Tessa took her cup and gave me a big hug. “Are you ready for a fun weekend?”

“
I think so. The big question is are
you
ready for the demos tomorrow?” I asked, smearing my bagel with more delicious cream cheese than was necessary.

Dylan McCartney opened the door and slipped languidly into the Tessa
’s shop.

“
Hey, Tessa. Hey, Jax,” said Dylan, always on the casual side, and always scruffy around the edges. That comes with being a twenty-two-year-old guy. If he’d been in Southern California, I’d have called him a surfer dude. Here in the Pacific Northwest, his t-shirt, flip-flops, and threadbare jeans looked out of place. He never looked like he was cold, but I couldn’t wear so little without freezing to death when temperatures get down to the 40s outside. Today it was 52 degrees and damp, which was typical weather for Seattle in April. I didn’t want to think about how warm it might be in Miami right now.

Two heads popped out from around the corner of the storage room on the side of the glass studio.

“Hi, Dylan!” Tessa’s teenaged daughters said at the same time.

“
Hi, ladies,” he said smiling shyly, as he pushed shaggy sand-colored hair out of his green eyes.

“
Izzy, Ashley, do you want bagels?” asked Tessa.

“
Not hungry,” both girls replied.

“
Well then, get back to work,” ordered Tessa. She knew how to keep those two girls focused, which wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. Izzy was sixteen and had gotten her driver’s license a few months earlier, much to her delight. To say that fifteen-year-old Ashley was jealous of her older sister’s new freedom would be an understatement.

The girls disappeared back around the corner, and I could hear squeals and laughter. I wasn
’t sure, but it seemed like it might have had something to do with Dylan.

Tessa rolled her eyes and laughed.
She had a good sense of humor about her daughters. Today was going well for the girls—they weren’t fighting. There seemed to be a constant battle between the two, except when their little brother was around.

Joey was four
years old, an accidental addition to the family when Tessa already had a twelve- and a thirteen-year-old. While the two teen girls fought over everything else, they were united on this: They loved and protected Joey above all else.

It
’s funny, but in my family, we had the same situation as Tessa’s. We had two sisters close in age—Connie and I were a year apart. Our brother Andy followed Connie by seven years. I’m sure my parents were disappointed that their eldest had turned out to be an artist, and not something important like lawyer Connie or computer genius Andy.

“
Dylan, do you want me to take your beads over to the shop?” Tessa asked.

“
Sure, that’d be great.”

“I’ll grab them when I go. Thanks for watching the shop while I’m gone,” Tessa said.

“Hey. Yeah. No prob.” Dylan was a man of few words, and a big appetite. I noticed he was already on his second bagel. Poor guy, he didn’t have much money for food.

“
Do you need any more help getting things set up for tomorrow’s demo?” I asked.

“
I think I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be. Plus, I’ve got some time before the demos start. You’ll come for some last-minute scurrying around in the morning?” This was Tessa in her super-efficient mode; she didn’t wait for a response. “Judy from JOWL wants everyone to check-in their inventory to her by two o’clock, so we better get going.”

“Ashley, you promised to babysit Joey and Rosie’s son Benny at our house tonight. Izzy, since you don’t have anything better to do, you can help your sister.”

Both girls glowered at their mother and groaned in unison, crossing their arms and tipping their heads back with an attitude only teenage girls can pull off.

Tessa grabbed her box and Dylan’s and was ready to head over to the bead shop.

“
Ashley, you come with me. Jax and I need to drop our boxes off at Aztec Beads, and then we can pick up Rosie’s son.” Joey and Benny hadn’t spent much time together, but they were already becoming fast friends, as only four-year-olds can do: one minute having just met and shyly saying “Hi,” and then a moment later, sharing a popsicle and pretending to be tigers.

In her no-nonsense style,
Tessa continued. “Izzy, you take my car, and we’ll meet you at home a little later.”

A big smile burst across Izzy
’s face. Ashley continued to scowl, but now it was directed at her sister. She was jealous.

“
An
d,
Izzy, get some gas, will you? The tank’s almost empty,” Tessa continued, pressing a wad of bills into her daughter’s hand as we headed out the door. “Use it all on gas—not snacks.” Tessa watched as her daughter pocketed the cash.

“
Sounds good to me,” said Izzy, trying not to sound too excited, fearing it would make her look uncool in front of Dylan. I’m sure she was thrilled because it was a chance for her to drive around in a car without her parents.

We
put Tessa and Dylan’s boxes of beads and necklaces into the trunk with mine. Izzy pulled up next to us in the van. “Bye, Mom. Thanks for the car. I promise to drive safely.”

“
If you get in trouble, call me,” Tessa called after her, as Izzy waved and pulled away. Even with her bossy attitude, Tessa was really just a big softie inside.

We waved as we watched the
van move extremely slowly down the road and turn the corner. Ashley, standing next to the Ladybug, wistfully watched Izzy drive away in her mom’s minivan. I’m not certain, but just after we couldn’t see the van anymore, I heard what sounded to me like squealing tires and burning rubber.

“
Good thing I put a GPS monitor on the van,” said Tessa calmly.

“
What?”

“
A GPS monitor. I can use my phone and track her location.”

“
But, you can’t press the brakes if she’s going too fast.”

“
No, but I can at least make sure I know where she is.” Tessa worried about her girls, like most parents do.

“Shotgun!” shouted Ashley, as we turned to get into the Ladybug.

“
Seriously, Ashley? You thought that would work? Get in the backseat,” commanded Tessa.

Ashley grumbled as she wedged herself into the back.
The space was cramped back there, and tiny Tessa would have fit better than her tall daughter. But Tessa outranked her, and she slid into the passenger seat next to me.

“
Next stop—Aztec Beads,” I announced, as I turned the ignition on the Ladybug and we headed to the bead shop.

“
What do you have for the JOWL lady?” I asked Tessa.

“
For the exhibit piece, I made a necklace of black beads with polka dots in all different colors, and then I’ve got some disk-shaped Thai silver beads that go between each of the glass pieces. I brought two whole trays of hollow beads to sell.”

“
Sounds fun,” I said. Tessa always had terrific new designs. During workshops at her studio, she taught people to make beads, but often those students also bought some of Tessa’s own work, knowing that it would be a long time before they perfected all of the techniques Tessa had mastered.

“
And you? What do you have to sell?” Tess
a
asked.

“
I made some white heart beads,” I replied.

“
Plai
n
heart-shaped beads? That sounds a little boring for you.”

“
Oh, sorry. They’re beads that have one color on the inside, and another color on the outside,” I explained. “You know, kind of like a Tootsie Pop. I use white at the center and transparent colors on the surface.”

“
Oh, I get it, ‘white heart’ because it has white in the middle. I’m sure I’ll love them.” Tessa had been supportive of me since I’d moved to Seattle. My skills as a glass beadmaker had improved with Tessa as my instructor. And she’d brought me into her family, since mine was on the other side of the country.

“
Well, let’s just hope the customers love them.” I really needed to top up my bank account to support the next phase of home improvement: painting the kitchen. My ancient kitchen needed more than paint, but at least a new color on the walls would brighten it up. Val’s kitchen had been painted a couple years ago, when I’d made it a priority to get a tenant on that side of the duplex paying rent after many long months of renovations. My side of the house was going to have to wait until I had more money under the mattress.

I parked
at the curb outside Aztec Beads. Rosie had been able to rent a prime piece of real estate right in Wallingford, one of the hipper neighborhoods in Seattle. It was a great place for Rosie and her kids. Her shop was on the bottom floor of a two-story building. There was an apartment upstairs with a balcony. Stairs led down from the balcony into a small patio at the back of Rosie’s shop. Another set of stairs connected the apartment to an area next to the front counter inside.

The
building where the bead store was located was painted vibrant red, with a brand-new sign at the corner. The image on the sign was an Aztec figure. He was lying on his back holding a tray aloft, as if making an offering to the gods. His offering: strands and strands of beads. Aztec Beads.

“
Mom
?
Can I go up the street to Babylon, the new music store?” Ashley asked Tessa as we parked. “They have all this cool vintage vinyl I want to check out.”

“
Vintage vinyl?”

“
You know, like, records? Funny stuff, like, the Flock of Seagulls?” Ashley had the annoying habit, as so many teenage girls do, of ending every statement as if it were a question. Oh, and including the word “like” as often as possible.

“
Flock of Seagulls. Jax, didn’t you and I love them?” Tessa asked.

“
We did,” I agreed, embarrassed. “Of course, we were both about three years old when those guys were popular.” This was a lie; we were in high school.

“
Yes! And, remember those wacky haircuts?” added Tessa, as she got swept up in her reverie of the mid-1980s. “The long crazy bangs covering the lead singer’s face,” she added, as she tried to mimic the style by pulling all of her hair up and over to one side.

“
What ev,” said Ashley, rolling her eyes and using another extremely annoying speaking style: abrevs. That is, abbreviations for any multi-syllabic words. Because it is exhausting to say “whatever.”

Without waiting for a response, Ashley bolted from
the car and down the street.

“
We’ll drive by in a little while and pick you up. Look for us, because I bet you don’t want me coming in there to get you,” Tessa shouted as her daughter sped toward the record shop. “And don’t buy any Duran Duran albums, I’ve got them all at home.”

Ashley cringed with embarrassment.

“Tessa, you don’t want to shout that out loud,” I advised her. It was true, she probably did have all of those albums. And if she didn’t, then I did.

We looked down the street and Ashley was nowhere in sight. She
’d been moving quickly, trying to make a fast escape before we embarrassed her further.

As we entered Aztec Beads
, we saw Rosie’s daughter, Tracy, behind the front counter. Tracy was pretty and young, but frail, her dark eyes lacking the vibrancy I’d expect of someone fresh out of college. She should be ready to take on the world, but instead looked like she would rather hide from it.

Tessa
and I stood around with our boxes of beads, trying to figure out what to do next. The place was packed. Some were beadmakers like us, milling around trying to figure out where to put their beads, and doing some shopping, because it’s hard to be at a bead sale without looking around for something new.

T
he place was packed with beads: revolving racks of sparkling crystals in every imaginable shape and hue, vials of tiny Japanese seed beads in a rainbow of colors carefully arranged in clear plastic cubbies, thick strands of ethnic beads from all over the world, and dozens of trays of gems and pearls. All the other bits and pieces needed to make jewelry packed the shelves and tables around the shop. It was a beader’s paradise.

Next to the shop was the gallery where this weekend’s show would be. The classroom was at the back of the shop.

“Tracy?” I said, trying to get her attention. She seemed to have tuned out the chaos around her. “We’ve got our beads. Is Judy from JOWL here, so she can check us in?”

Tracy pointed through the crowd
. “I think she’s in the classroom doing inventories for some of the artists,” she said more loudly than her usual soft voice, over the din of the crowd.

Just then, Rosie broke through the crowd, hustling up to the counter by the window where Tracy stood. Rosie was a fireplug of a woman; her dark hair, complete lack of a neck, and right now the intense look of anger on her red face made her look like a very serious fireplug. This
wasn’t a woman you wanted to mess with. She meant business, and as far as I could tell, with all of the people buzzing around her shop, her business was doing very well.

“
Tracy! Did you call the police about those two thugs trespassing on
my
property?” Rosie demanded, pointing her stubby finger toward the window at a young man and woman on the sidewalk.

“
Is that Misty and Nick?” I asked Tessa in a whisper.

Tessa nodded.

The couple had spread out a small batik cloth on the sidewalk and had pulled out all sorts of glass beads and pretty woven bracelets. I wasn’t sure what made these two people “thugs,” because every time I’d chatted with them they’d been sweet, maybe down on their luck, but they seemed like good people. Misty, the young woman, was wearing an old red flannel shirt and faded jeans. Her hands darted from item to item, as she laid out the bracelets with care, the cuffs of her shirt pulled back to reveal a tiny geometric tattoo design around her right wrist. Her partner Nick pulled off his hooded black sweatshirt and settled down cross-legged on the ground next to the cloth, his knees poking through the holes in his jeans.

Nick opened his backpack to start working on some new bracelets
, engaging customers with a charming smile as they came by. From what Tessa had told me, Nick and Misty had no permanent place to call their own, and they apparently did a lot of couch-surfing.

Several people stopped to look at what they were selling, and while they didn
’t make any sales in the short time we watched them, it did seem like they had enough interest in their jewelry they’d have some buyers eventually. I could nearly see the smoke rising from the top of Rosie’s head as she flailed her arms around and shouted at Tracy.

Tracy tried to reason with her mother.
“I don’t think we can do anything, Mama. They are not on our property. It’s the sidewalk, it belongs to the ci—”

“
This is ridiculous. Nobody has any balls in this city,” Rosie said, punctuating each word with a thump on the counter with her fleshy fist. Tracy winced each time Rosie’s hand made contact. “I will deal with this—and you—later!”

Rosie turned to leave and saw us standing there, hav
ing just witnessed her outburst. She grimaced, just a little. It was enough to remind us she was human and had just embarrassed herself with her temper tantrum. Then we watched as Rosie’s stout body wedged its way back through the crowd and out of sight.

Tracy looked woefully out the window. She didn
’t know what to do. This couple couldn’t be much older than she was. Tracy clearly didn’t agree with her mother, but didn’t seem to be able to stand up to her. I supposed Rosie didn’t like the couple cutting into her profits, but really, were there going to be that many fewer beads sold in the shop because a couple of kids were trying to make a few bucks to make ends meet?

“
Let me help you find Judy,” Tracy said, composing herself as she tucked her long dark hair behind her ears. We followed Tracy through the shop and into the classroom at the back of the building, where she pointed Judy out to us.

Judy was standing right in the middle of the room, and as
people approached her, she spun around to greet them, like a middle-aged whirling dervish. She wore a tiger-stripe bead on a long chain, nearly whacking people close-by as she turned. While Judy’s necklace was pretty, the rest of her needed a makeover. If Val ever met her, she’d be trying to convince Judy to let her give her a complete overhaul. Val was always looking for frumpy women to “fix,” and Judy was a prime candidate, with her gaudy oversized jungle-print top.

Judy
was the hardest working volunteer I’d ever met, and an extremely talented jewelry designer. This weekend of events was Judy’s brainchild. Everyone who wanted to be part of this exhibition had to apply to the Jewelers of Washington League. I agreed with Val, JOWL wasn’t a good acronym. It spelled something I, and everyone else I knew, didn’t want, especially when we looked in the mirror and saw new droopy skin gradually forming every day. But the idea for the bead-related weekend was great. Artists applied to exhibit their jewelry at the event, and for those who were accepted, it was a terrific way to gain exposure and meet new clients, both professional designers and hobbyists. Unfortunately, with only one person to check-in all the beadmakers, it took nearly forever to get Judy’s attention.

“
Oh, hi, nice to meetcha,” Judy said, with a squeaky voice. She grabbed Tessa’s hand with both of hers, and gave it a thorough shaking.

“
And…you must be Jax,” Judy said, looking up over the top of her bifocals from her clipboard. Fortunately, she didn’t try and shake my hand because I had a tentative hold on a stack of boxes, and wasn’t sure if I could manage even a head bob without everything tumbling to the floor.

Judy was too enthusiastic for me
, especially since I’d only had one cup of coffee this morning. She was happy there were so many people here to set up for the gallery show. Judy had been the sole juror for this event; its success depended on her ability to choose the right artists to sell their beads and to decide who had appealing workshop projects. Rosie was counting on the success of this event to bring in loads of new customers who would buy from her all of the supplies needed to complete each of the workshop’s projects.

“
Okay. Let’s see, where’s the clipboard? Oh, ha! Right here in my hand,” said Judy, trying to laugh at herself. We weren’t really laughing with her—or, at all. We did smile with gritted teeth, but mostly because we were feeling impatient. Thin curly wisps of hair were stuck to Judy’s forehead. Either she was always moist around the edges or she was having a “personal heat wave” as we sometimes said about women of a certain age, specifically the age we were rapidly approaching.

“
Jax, those are super earrings. Did you make those?” Judy said, reaching over and pulling one of them toward her so she could examine it more closely. My head followed along, so she didn’t rip the earring right out of my ear. At this proximity, I could see a million tiny droplets of sweat across her brow.

Ew
.